Sunday, July 22, 2012

On a recent visit with us, my mom brought a
ridiculously heavy green suitcase full of what she told me was family history
books. Not having time to cope with it, I set it in the “junk room” and spent a
couple of months ignoring it. I know that there’s a reason I opened it up, but
now I don’t remember why. But it was like opening up Pandora’s Box, because
once it was opened, there was no going back! There were several family history
books, but there were also many invaluable family mementos such as Uncle Phil’s
medals, their WWII ration books and letters between my Great Uncle Phil and his grandmother during WWI (that's a whole 'nother blog post!). There were also dozens of
clipped obituaries from many different newspapers, and someone had taken the
time to make sure there was a date written on most of them. One such obituary was
for Mary Aloise Canning. Mary’s mother, Ernestine Rose Vautrinot Canning was a
younger sister of my great-grandmother, Grace Eugenie Vautrinot Wenz.

Here is the text of the obituary, from the Boston
Globe, dated 4 Sep 1987:

“DEDHAM – A funeral Mass was to be said Sept. 8 at St.
Mary’s Church, Dedham, for Mary A. Canning, who died Sept. 4 at the Goddard
Home, Jamaica Plain. She was 86.

Born in Dedham, and a lifelong resident. She was a graduate
of Massachusetts General Hospital Nursing School, Class of 1921. Miss Canning
was employed at the hospital until 1941, when she joined the U.S. Army Nurse
Corps. During World War II, she served in Casablanca, North, Africa, and
assisted wounded troops through the Italian campaign, serving troops at Monte
Cassino with distinction.

Upon the conclusion of the war in Europe, she served in the
Far East, arriving in Tokyo shortly after the Armistice was signed. She
retained the rank of major when she retired. After she returned to Dedham, she
worked as a public health nurse for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, retiring
in 1967. Miss Canning was a member of the Dedham American Legion Post.

She was the daughter of the late Thomas and Ernestine
(Votreneau [sic]) and the aunt of Richard Canning of Wilmington, Del., Edward
X. Canning of Fairfield Conn., Harry Canning of Hudson, Ohio, Thomas Canning of
California and Rita Meuer of Hagerstown, Md.

Arrangements were handled by the George F. Doherty &
Sons Wilson-Cannon Funeral Hom, 456 High St., Dedham. Burial will take place at
Brookdale Cemetery, Dedham.

Having an interest in military history, I was
entranced to think someone with whom I was closely related played a critical
part in such important campaigns in WWII. The more I read, the more I was
impressed with her contributions and distressed to know that the involvement of
these women has been so overlooked by history. I read an excellent work by
Evelyn Monahan and Rosemarie Neidel-Greenlee entitled “And if I Perish,” which
details their amazing service. When the troops landed in Africa, those nurses,
including Mary Canning, were landing right next to them. Between Africa and
Italy, they had two hospital ships bombed out from under them. In Italy, the
nurses were delayed in landing for three days, but remained trapped with the
troops on Anzio Beach, otherwise known as “Hell’s Half-Acre,” for the entire time
of the German bombardment. This was the first time in U.S. Military history
where nurses in uniform travelled just behind the combat troops, and in many
ways, they were making it up as they went along.

Like Uncle Ned, she passed away before I was ever
aware of her history. But I have been in correspondence with one of her nephews
who graciously shared her photo with me. He told me that “she was a very
outgoing person and liked to party. She spent much time keeping in touch with
relatives. I don’t think she felt that all her activities were any hardship. She
rather enjoyed all her adventures.”

L-R Jack McLaughlin, Millie Irving Wenz, with her husband Fred Wenz behind her, Emily Wenz Morse, Mary Canning, Marie Wenz McLaughlin and Dot Irving Wenz (my grandmother). The occasion was probably the anniversary of the McLaughlins, taken at their home in Hanson, MA in 1975.

And I’ve just learned that I had actually met her in
1975! Oh, that I had known! Hopefully more research will reveal more details of
her life and I’ll be able to update this post with more detail soon.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Every family has at least one brickwall, and as many
methods of climbing over them. One of my strategies was to write a family
history of one of our lines that ended at that ancestor’s immigration into the
United States.

What an undertaking it became! But it forced me to
re-examine thirty years of evidence and helped me to find some clues I’d
overlooked.

Twenty-six pages later, my data had congealed into a
reasonably decent narrative that I felt I could share with family members,
known and unknown. Now, how to distribute it? Since I’m currently out of work,
it had to be very budget-friendly. Well, I had plenty of stamps and envelopes
and access to online people searches – so I went looking for distant cousins. I
started with just one line – the Maitlands. I had been in contact with one of
the cousins years ago, and was dismayed to learn that he had since passed away.
But his obituary listed the names and towns of his siblings and children, so I
wrote six letters. Well, one of them hit paydirt! I heard from the
granddaughter of Aunt Tillie, my great-grandfather’s older sister. Tillie had
lived with them for a time after her husband passed away.

The cousin shared a few stories with me that
contained some important clues, and I’ll share a few of them here:

“During the second WW, my Mom worked several hours a
day in a cemetery greenhouse. My Mom had
the greenest thumb you could find.
So....Grandma Maitland took care of us kids, or vice versa many
times. She was funny, because she wanted
the neighbors to think that she was earning her keep - she would stand in one
place on the sidewalk with a broom in her hand and sweep periodically. That was
long before senior residences. Altho,
when she lived with Uncle Bill in Delaware, she told me that to keep busy
there, she would take the bus to the Nursing Home to visit the
"girls". She was 10 years
older that most of them were, but they were her friends. I remember visiting at her home when Grandpa
was still living. They had an old pump organ,
which my kid brother and I loved. We
could not reach the peddles and the keys at the same time, so we took
turns. He would play while I pumped the
peddle and then we would change places.
Didn't bother Grandma doing it that way. Grandma Maitland (Wenz) lived
with us about 6 months of the year after Grandpa died. She had two sons, William and Robert Laurie
Maitland, Jr. (my dad). They took turns
caring for her until she died. She told
me, since I was the youngest and would listen, stories about growing up in her
family. She said that they never spoke
anything but German until they went to school.
She taught me one little verse in German that they always insisted she
learn and it still is with me a lot, and she told me about her brother and his
understanding of American idioms. He was
chopping wood and seemed to struggle with it.
They told him he needed more "elbow grease". The next thing they saw was her brother in
the yard greasing his elbows. I always
assumed it was Uncle Ed, who may be your grandfather figure. I remember him well, because he came once in
a while to visit with Matilda. He was a
beautiful person - very large- and very gracious, especially with us a little
kids. He had the biggest hands I ever
remember, but he was a farmer in the Boston area and I assumed that was his
largest."

What a great peek inside my family history – the real
people, not just the names and dates on a page! So, reach out to distant
cousins – you’ll never know what you’ll find!

And the book? Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B47bUrlyCkJhRndzeGx3NlQ4eFk

Monday, April 16, 2012

I wish I had learned earlier that the stories of
peoples’ lives were so much more important than filling in sheer facts of dates
and places on a form. But I’m thankful that I did ask my Gramie about how she
met my Grampa. I had been hesitant to ask, because he had passed away only a
few years earlier and I had a strong sense that she still missed him very much,
so I was hesitant to ask her for fear of bringing up painful feelings.

She seemed to enjoy talking about him and told me
that she met him when she was at work at the shank shop.

Her job was to tape
the metal shanks that became the arch supports for shoes. At that time (the
1930s) that area of Massachusetts was still a huge shoe-working center – think “Bostonian
Shoe.” It seemed ironic to me that they had met at the shank shop, since it was right up the street from their home and I had memories of hearing them talk about it all my life.

He was a truck driver, and delivered supplies to the factory.

She
said he would always wink at her when he came in, until finally, the red-headed
son of Irish immigrants asked the beautiful daughter of Italian immigrants for
a date.

They were married at the Holy Ghost Catholic Church
in Whitman on 27 November 1932 and remained together until his death in January
of 1971.

They had three sons, my dad, Edmund (front left), and my uncles Kevin (front right) and Shawn (the baby).

This is how I remember them best; the photo was taken at Uncle Kevin & Aunt Mary Lou's wedding. The gent on the left is my dad.